Quarry

Mr Bilton: Earliest memory I have is about four years old, and the lime kilns used to be burning at the back of Nottingham Road, oh dear, beginning of Brook Lane. Then there were another lime kiln at the bottom of Highfields Road, farm at the end, and I lived down Breadcroft Lane halfway between the two. Lime kiln. Two fields away opposite the house was a limestone quarry. I used to go, toddle up there as a four year old, watch the men at work. I remember four men so far down in the quarry on a great big slab of limestone, just like a level concrete floor it looked like. Six men driving wedges to split the concrete slabs up, nine inches thick. Big burly bloke, foreman, stood there watching, the poor fellows didn’t hardly dare straighten their backs or he’d go, 'Get on with it'. If I was a bit older I’d have shouted, ‘Shall I fetch you a whip?’. Put me in mind of the African slaves on a plantation. Nothing but slavery in them days.